British satellite up for battle in space with America's GPS

A SATELLITE built in the UK and planned to rival the United State's GPS navigation system was today successfully launched from Kazakhstan.

The Giove-A is the first satellite in the EU's £2.4 billion Galileo navigation programme, which will eventually employ about 30 satellites for mostly civilian uses ranging from guiding drivers to search-and-rescue.

news.scotsman.com...

If successful, Galileo will end the EU's dependency on the GPS systems, that is ran by the US military. This is definitely a breakthrough for the EU.
Galileo will also be more exact than the GPS. The GPS has a precision of five meters, and the Galileo has a precision of one meter.

This is an amazing breakthrough. After today's launch there will be a Giove-B will be launced in the spring. The EU is hoping to eventually employ 30 satellites for mostly civilian use ranging from guiding trackers to search-and-rescue.

With the EU wanting to have 30 satellites out in space, a person with an ulterior motive could use this to their advantage.

I'm glad the launch was a success and that it was able to communicate back.

They made fast progress on this project considering it's only around three years old.

With that better accuracy it's not that hot. GPS can be very accurate too, there are methods like Diferencial GPS - DGPS - used by geodets that have accuracy in centimeters.

An accuracy of five versus one meter sounds impressive, but what does that give the average consumer? He won't need to read the street signs from five meters, easier to find that favorite restaurant, no longer getting lost on that daily comute to work, etc. Airlines less likely to miss that 12KM runway. So what does that extra accuracy get us?

It gets us extra costs. Our understanding of the Galileo system is that it is a subscribed service. In other words not free. The US's GPS system is free to all users. I've personally not seen any costs so it may be very reasonable. But free versus $$$?

It gets us a more crowded sky.

It keeps some groups receiving big government contracts.

I have nothing against the rich getting richer, if only it was me.

I was reading about this in the paper today and it sounds like a pretty nice advancement. The receivers will be compatible with Galileo or GPS, much like a radio that you switch from AM to FM.

I also like the fact that the US government won't be able to scramble Galileo like it can GPS anytime it gets a scary feeling.



Wupy

Originally posted by dead2rights
It gets us extra costs. Our understanding of the Galileo system is that it is a subscribed service. In other words not free. The US's GPS system is free to all users. I've personally not seen any costs so it may be very reasonable. But free versus $$$?

There are two different services, an ecrypted commercial service with high accuracy and a free service for anyone with a Galileo compatible reciever.

One advantage the Galileo service had is interoperability with other service like the Russian GPS, GLONASS.

This project will also involve countries like Israel, India and China.

Because of all of the countries involved I think global coverage may be better with the Galileo service.

en.wikipedia.org...

There will be four different navigation services available:

* The Open Service (OS) will be free for anyone to access. The OS signals will be broadcast in two bands, at 1164–1214 MHz and at 1563–1591 MHz. Receivers will achieve an accuracy of

Originally posted by mrwupy
I was reading about this in the paper today and it sounds like a pretty nice advancement. The receivers will be compatible with Galileo or GPS, much like a radio that you switch from AM to FM.

I also like the fact that the US government won't be able to scramble Galileo like it can GPS anytime it gets a scary feeling.

Wupy

If US govt "gets scary feeling" about Gallileo they will simply call EU and tell them to scramble it. That's the only difference.